As outcry over family separations grows, Trump meets with House Republicans on immigration

WASHINGTON — President Trump reassured House Republicans during a closed-door meeting on Capitol Hill Tuesday night that he would support a sweeping immigration bill crafted by GOP leaders — sort of.

During the hourlong session, Trump did not deliver a rousing endorsement of the leadership bill. But he said just enough to convince Republicans that he would sign, if they can pass it.

“My sense is he wants us to vote for the compromise," Rep. Peter King of New York told reporters after the meeting.

The president, along with Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and immigration adviser Stephen Miller, joined House Republicans  for a rare evening meeting at the Capitol. The event was billed as an immigration discussion, but Pennsylvania Rep. Ryan Costello said the president "spent more time talking about taxes and tariffs than he did about immigration.”

Trump also drew groans when he went after one of their colleagues — Trump critic Rep. Mark Sanford — for losing his primary in South Carolina last week.

But Republicans glossed over the meandering presidential script because Trump delivered their desired bottom line: He voiced support for two GOP immigration bills set to be voted on this week.

One of the bills — a conservative measure — is unlikely to pass the House. But GOP leaders believe the second bill, crafted by House Speaker Paul Ryan, has a chance of passing the House. If it does, House Republicans to wash their hands of an issue that has plagued them much of this year. Blowback over immigration, from the left and the right, has reached new highs in recent weeks after the Trump administration launched a "zero tolerance" policy, resulting in heart-wrenching images of children separated from their parents at the border.

The president seemed to doom the Ryan bill on Friday when, during an impromptu interview with Fox News, he said he would not sign the the compromise bill that Ryan crafted after weeks of negotiations between the moderate and conservative factions of his party. It took the White House more than eight hours to clarify that the president had misspoke and did support both the Ryan bill and the more conservative measure.  

On Tuesday, just hours before his meeting with House Republicans, Trump suggested he would be able to make changes to Ryan's bill after a briefing on the legislation, further clouding his position. He made those remarks at a speech before the National Federation of Independent Business.

But after their closed-door session, GOP lawmakers seemed mollified that Trump would support the bill. Republicans said they would be whipping up support for the bill Tuesday night.

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., a moderate who helped negotiate the compromise bill, said he did not think there was any “damage” left from Trump’s zigzag on Friday over the more moderate GOP immigration bill.

Trump was "very adamant, very adamant about supporting this and being 1,000 percent behind it,” Diaz-Balart said Tuesday.

Both bills would address the separation of families at the border, without halting the administration's "zero tolerance" policy. Republicans tweaked their bill to make clear that children can be detained for more than 20 days. Republicans argue if children are allowed to be detained longer, they can stay with their families in detention. Funding for additional detention centers able to house families would come from money set aside to bolster the border.

Rep. Carlos Curbelo, R-Fla., one of the co-sponsors of the compromise bill said Trump made a strong pitch for it, but it still may not have the votes to pass.

“We don’t know if we’ll have the votes, but we know that we’re closer than we’ve ever been,” Curbelo said.

Several members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus stood outside the closed-door GOP meeting with Trump to protest the president’s family separation policy.

Rep. Juan Vargas, D-Calif., said he confronted the president as he left the meeting and said: “How would you like it if they ripped your kids away from you and threw them in a cage? You have kids … How would you like that?”

Vargas said the president did not respond.

North Carolina Rep. Mark Walker, who leads the conservative 150-plus Republican Study Committee and participated in negotiations on the compromise bill, wouldn't say whether he would vote for it, even with the president's backing. But, he said, if a conservative was unsure, "I think maybe they still need a little bit more."

The compromise bill is the result of painstaking negotiations between two warring GOP factions. The co-sponsors on the final text Tuesday night spanned the ideological spectrum, though the names of some conservatives who had been involved in negotiations were absent. Influential conservative groups have said the bill amounts to "amnesty" and have urged members not to support it.

The proposal would allow an estimated 1.8 million "Dreamers" to apply for “nonimmigrant status” — essentially a conditional legal visa — if they meet certain conditions. If the "Dreamers" win that nonimmigrant status, then after six years, they would be able to apply for a green card, which will set them on the path to eventual citizenship.

As an attempt to calm immigration hardliners, the bill would ultimately overall immigration, the measure would end a diversity lottery program and limit family-based immigration. The visas from those programs would be used for the "Dreamers" and then dry up.

The bill also includes Trump's biggest immigration ask: funding for the border wall. More than $23.4 billion would be allotted for the wall and other border security, on top of $1.6 billion Congress has already approved.

. The more conservative immigration bill would provide temporary legal protections to a smaller pool of just under 700,000 "Dreamers" on a renewable basis. Like the compromise bill, it would fund the wall and cut legal immigration. It would also include other internal enforcement measures, such as mandatory e-verify, which would require businesses to determine the legal status of new workers.

If House Republicans stick together, they can pass legislation along party lines — which they'll need to do if these bills have any chance of making it out of the lower chamber. But it was still not clear either piece of legislation could muster enough GOP support to pass.

If the legislation makes its way to the Senate, it would need the support of at least 10 Senate Democrats. No Democrats in either the House or Senate have signaled they'd back the bills.

Senate Republicans are pushing for a narrow bill to address the family separations, but lawmakers have not signaled an interest in tackling the broader immigration debate.

WPXI